Tag Archives: Public Service

Roundup: The “bigger picture” of continued hybrid sittings

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The Procedure and House Affairs committee is looking in to the future of hybrid sittings, and the Speaker wants them to consider the “bigger picture” of all of this. Of course, the bigger picture is that a) by trying to tie future use of hybrid to sickness or work-life balance, MPs will be creating an impossible attendance standard and create a monstrous culture of presenteeism; b) ministers will not only evade accountability not being in the House, and will be unavailable for MPs to see them during votes—which is the one time they are most available—and this is already happening as ministers are getting used to taking off when votes start and doing them from their phones in their cars, which is very bad; it also means that minister and MPs in general are less available to be found by the media; and c) the big one is of course the human toll that these sessions take on the interpretation staff. The NDP, as usual thinks you can just hire more interpreters, except there are no more interpreters to be hired. They literally cannot graduate enough of them to cover the existing attrition even before the injury and burnout rate from Zoom is factored in.

But MPs have consistently ignored the human toll, preferring their convenience, and whinging about long travel distances and having families, as though there aren’t options available to them that aren’t to most other Canadians. I will keep beating on this drum, because we won’t be able to maintain a fully bilingual parliament for much longer if this keeps up (we’re barely doing so as it is), and it’s probably going to take things absolutely falling apart for them to care, and that’s a problem.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 223:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Ukrainian forces have made rapid and powerful advances in both the east and south, and in places where Russian forces are retreating, they are abandoning posts so rapidly that they are leaving dead comrades behind.

https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1577324136220839937

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Roundup: Marinating ideas or wasting precious time?

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As his weekend think piece, the CBC’s Aaron Wherry extolled the virtues of MPs who aim high with their private members’ bills, even if they don’t go anywhere. I am of particular mixed feelings about this, because while I can get behind the notion that sometimes the big ideas need to marinate in the public consciousness for a while, whether that was cannabis legalisation, single-event sports betting, or trans rights, we also need to be cognisant that a whole lot of private members’ business is, well, a giant waste of everyone’s time, particularly when you have MPs who table dozens of bills and motions in any single session that will never see the light of day, but consume time they should be spending doing their actual jobs of holding government to account, as well as media attention for something that is dead on arrival.

It’s hard not to conclude that PMBs aren’t being abused in the current iteration of the Standing Orders. We’re seeing a growing number of bills that need royal recommendations still get debated all the way up to the final vote, which essentially means that everyone’s time has been wasted because it’s not going to proceed, and that MP could have used their spot for something that could have gone somewhere instead, rather than hoping that the government was going to grant the recommendation that late in the game. There is a never-ending supply of bills to amend riding names and declare national days, weeks, or months about some ethno-cultural group or cause, individual tweaks to the Criminal Code that have distorted all semblance of proportionality in our sentencing principles, or attempts at tax expenditures that are a loophole to the prohibition against proposing spending (because the rubric is that you are forgoing tax revenue, as though that didn’t come with its own costs), and when you do get the big issues, I’m really not sure that two hours of scripted speeches being read into the void is really exercising the national consciousness on the issue.

Maybe I’m just horribly cynical, but I don’t see the benefits of this particular exercise like I would if there was an actual grassroots process to formulate policy that the party adopts (and I especially have a problem when MPs use their spots to put forward policy positions because it surrenders their rights and privileges as MPs for the party’s sake, most especially if it’s a stunt on the party’s behalf—looking especially at you, NDP). Time is one of the most precious resources in Parliament, and the amount of time and resources that gets wasted on these bills that will never see the light of day just makes a mockery of the process.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 221:

After being encircled by Ukrainian forces, Russians retreated from the city of Lyman, which has been a logistics hub for the Donetsk region. In the meantime, Russians have targeted humanitarian convoys, because of course they did. Meanwhile, ten torture sites have been found in Izium, which Russia controlled for six months, and at least thirty people found in the mass grave outside of the city bore marks associated with torture.

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1576248108690079745

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Roundup: Kludging together dental care

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Parliament resumed sitting yesterday, and the first thing the government did was tabled two bills related to their recently announced affordability measures. While the GST rebate is a fairly straight-forward mechanism that mostly just needs a royal recommendation to ensure that funds are available for it, they also tabled their bill on dental care, or rather the funds to be used for dental care in lieu of a full-on programme because it’s going to take a while to figure out how best to do it. And thus far, it looks like the kludge is to use the CRA as the delivery mechanism and who would eventually follow-up to see that it was properly administered and not improperly claimed. But that’s going to be a problem. And the worst part of this is the reminder that the NDP want this to be a fully federally-administered programme, when it’s an issue within provincial jurisdiction, and there is no federal system they can realistically build off of. The CRA to transfer funds to families is a kludge, and not a great one, but the NDP have demands and an inane belief that the problem just requires enough political will. This can only end in tears.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 209:

While Ukrainian forces bolster their lines with captured Russian tanks, shelling around the Enerhodar nuclear plant has resulted in damage to the facility, as they target other power plants and dams as though that would make it easier for slaves to do the work.

On the Russian side, it looks like the regime is trying to speed ahead sham referendums to justify formally annex those territories, but nobody should be fooled. As well, the Duma is considering legislation that would crack down on soldiers who disobey orders, as well as deserters, which could be indicate a real problem for Russia when it comes to maintaining their military.

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Roundup: Poilievre on the first ballot

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Not unexpectedly, Pierre Poilievre won the Conservative leadership race quite handily on the first ballot, with some sixty-eight percent of the vote, and winning the point share in about 300 of the 338 ridings around the country. This is going to be declared “decisive,” and that it will force the caucus to rally around him, but I have some doubts, particularly as you had MPs who were openly questioning their future in the party under a Poilievre win. We’ll see where they go in the coming weeks, but Poilievre is already making some backroom changes, including replacing the board of the party’s fundraising arm—because replacing the entire party machinery with loyalists is one way to ensure that the membership is stymied from holding you to account in the future (and yes, the Liberals are most especially guilty of this after Trudeau oversaw the party’s constitution be replaced with one dedicated to total control by the leader’s office). We’ll also see who he picks for his front-bench.

As for what this means moving to the next election, there is a lot of doubt that Poilievre is going to “pivot to the centre,” because he doesn’t think he can win there. He is likely to try and get more votes from the far-right, and access votes from there by appealing to them in various ways, as he has explicitly done so far, whether it was supporting the occupation in Ottawa, or playing along with conspiracy theories like those around the World Economic Forum. You’re going to have a lot of talking heads bring up that “300 ridings!” figure to show that he somehow has support across the country, when that is a massive sample selection bias, which shows that he knows how to organize small numbers nationally, but says nothing about the broader public. And while this thread from Justin Ling is good to read, I will echo his caution that calling Poilievre a “white supremacist” plays into his hands—his wife is from Venezuela, his children are mixed-race, and if the media tries the narrative on him, he will eviscerate them for it, while reminding everyone yet again about Trudeau’s history of Blackface. His opponents can’t play the game he wants them to play, but we’ll see if they have the capacity or ability. As for media, well, I suspect they will continue to keep both-sidesing his lies, and he’ll keep beating up on them, and on and on it goes.

For pundit reaction, Aaron Wherry remarks on Poilievre’s vow to remain as loud and antagonistic a populist as possible, and how he has been willing to undermine the institutions of democracy his whole careers. Jen Gerson considers Poilievre’s win the death knell of moderate conservatism in Canada, but it’s less a question of policy than of temperament. Althia Raj buys into the notion that Poilievre’s caucus will be more united, which frees up energy to fight the Liberals. Chantal Hébert believes that Poilievre’s victory will convince Trudeau to stay on for the next election, believing that he can’t let Poilievre win.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 200:

The counter-offensive, particularly in the north-eastern part of Ukraine, has been advancing at a rapid pace, and Russians are fleeing with minimal resistance, leaving a lot of weapons and ammunition behind. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put out a video mocking the Russian retreat, saying that it’s showing their best side. Further south, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has now been completely shut down in order to prevent a nuclear catastrophe as shelling continues in the region. Meanwhile, in Sloviansk, in Donetsk province, continues to see artillery attacks as Russian forces try to take the entire Donbas region. While the counter-attack is a positive sign, it is likely that the conflict will continue for some time, with the added complication that Western allies are starting to run out of inventory to donate to the effort, and everyone needs to beware of what Putin may do when he feels like he’s been backed into a corner.

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Roundup: An apology for Zoom—but not for why you think

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It’s now on or about day one-hundred-and-thirteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like Severodonetsk has not fallen, and lo, the promised humanitarian corridor did not happen. (This is my surprised face). Russians did shell a weapons depot near Lviv in the western part of the country, where Western munitions were allegedly stored. Meanwhile, civilians in areas where Russian forces were repelled are being faced with mines, which are killing and maiming people. Canada will be sending $9 million worth of barrel replacements for the howitzers we shipped to Ukraine earlier in the year, while Anita Anand is calling on the defence industry to be more responsive.

Closer to home, there was an interesting apology in the Senate on Tuesday, which was when Senator Rosa Galvez apologised for having attended a committee meeting over Zoom from out of the country. You see, the Senate adopted rules around their hybrid sittings where they must be at a designated office or residence, and that’s it. There is a sad history in the Senate of abuse going back decades were certain senators basically lived in Mexico and showed up for one day a year, and collected their base salary, and it was a scandal. Since then attendance records are made public and they essentially couldn’t get away with it any longer. (I remember after an earthquake, I went to the Hill just after it happened, and while senators were gathered on the lawn, they were keen to ensure that the person who recorded their attendance saw that yes indeed, they were present even though they were out of the Chamber at the moment it happened and the building was evacuated, because they take it seriously). Regardless, this senator says she was caught up in wanting to do her committee work while she was at the Summit of the Americas, which is commendable in a way, but also shows some of the dangers of this reliance on hybrid sittings in that it creates a new obligation of presenteeism.

Meanwhile, over in the West Block, voting was suspended for a few minutes yesterday afternoon because there was a problem with the voting app that MPs use, and once again, this is a problem with how hybrid sittings are operating. I’ve already written about how this creates a new standard of perfect attendance which is a problem for all involved, but we’re already seeing a greater move for MPs and ministers who are in town not sticking around in the Chamber, but taking off and voting by app, and this is going to have profound consequences the longer it goes on. Votes were one of the few times when ministers could reliably be found in the Chamber, and backbenchers and opposition members could buttonhole them about pressing issues. If they take off as soon as votes are about to start because they think it’s easier to press a button (and have their faces recognised), then we’re straying dangerously far from one of the core symbolic elements of our parliamentary democracy. This should be killed with fire, along with the hybrid sittings, as soon as possible.

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Roundup: Cynicism around new gun laws

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We’re now on or about day ninety-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the fighting has intensified in Sievierodonetsk, which Russia is trying to take before more Western arms arrive in Ukraine’s hands. Meanwhile, here is a slideshow of life in Mariupol now that the Russians have seized the city after laying waste to it.

Elsewhere, Europe has been trying to institute a ban on Russian oil in order to cut off Russia’s finances, but this has only been partially successful. To that end, all imports coming by sea have been banned, but crude by pipeline is still being allowed, which is only about a third of the total volume. Hungary has been a holdout in this, because they want guarantees that their oil supply security will be maintained (and Orban has been something of an ally of Putin, so that doesn’t help matters any).

Closer to home, the government used the opportunity of the most recent school shooting in the US to table their latest gun control legislation, which includes a freeze on handgun sales or transfers in this country rather than an outright ban, as well as a mandatory buy-back programme for assault-style rifles, and a new “red flag” system for licenses. While there isn’t a lot of daylight between the parties on these issues, there is nevertheless some very crass cynicism deep within the Liberal proposal. Matt Gurney lays a lot of it out in this thread (which I won’t reproduce entirely here because it’s long), which is worthwhile considering.

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1531308859649888261

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1531384075742765056

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1531385918531182593

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1531387184795852807

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Roundup: Competing nonsense lawsuits

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It’s now approximately day ninety-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk says that Russian forces are advancing from all sides. Another 200 bodies have been found in Mariupol, where Russian forces have been pounding the city to rubble.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1529206361338396672

There is also talk about Vladimir Putin having survived an assassination attempt after the invasion began, and Kremlin insiders are discussing a possible successor to Putin as discontent grows with the course of the war. So that’s going well.

Closer to home, I think the situation in New Brunswick is about to do my head in, as two competing lawsuits are colliding—the challenge to the appointment of a unilingual lieutenant governor, and a frivolous lawsuit challenging the fact that the premier violated the “fixed election date” in calling an election. The lieutenant governor suit is going down on appeal because the reasoning in the original decision is a constitutional impossibility (one part of the constitution cannot override another, which the ruling does). And the challenge to the election call is a dead letter because simple statute cannot bind the Crown prerogatives in this way, and Democracy Watch keeps losing this suit every time they attempt it, not to mention that you cannot undo an election. When a legislature is dissolved, it’s dissolved (and no, the UK ruling on prorogation is not the same thing). This is all nonsense and eating up court time unnecessarily, but this is where we’re at.

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QP: The “soft on crime” square dance

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The prime minister was away in Newfoundland to meet Prince Charles and Camilla for the start of their royal tour, and most other leaders stayed away as well. Somewhat unusually, Blaine Calkins led off, and he accused the government of being soft on crime, and that crime was getting worse in Liberal-held ridings, to which Gary Anandasangaree read a script about the bill getting rid of sentences that disproportionately target Black and Indigenous people and don’t make anyone safer. Calkins complained that the government was just trying to bring back a gun registry that only targets law-abiding gun owners. Marco Mendicino reminded him that they were banning military-style rifles like AR-15s, but the Conservatives were trying to make then legal again. Calkins insisted it was just a new gun registry, but Mendicino listed new measures that they announced this week to tighten restrictions. Luc Berthold took over in French, and accused the Liberals of wanting armed criminals on the streets, to which Anandasangaree read the French intro to his script, before switching back to English to read the rest of it. Berthold insisted that Bill C-5 would leave criminals on the streets, and Mendicino listed the measures that the Conservatives opposed.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he railed that the federal government was subsidising oil companies while refinery margins keep increasing, and Randy Boissonnault recited a list of affordability measures that were somewhat of a non sequitur. Therrien repeated this accusations both oil companies, to which Steven Guilbeault recited that they have been cutting subsidies and are moving faster than other G7 partners.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, repeated the same accusations, and wanted the government to support their plan to double the GST credit to help people who need it. Boissonnault listed economic engines for the country and railed that the real problem was Putin and his war on Ukraine. Singh repeated the question in French, and Guilbeault repeated his previous response.

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Roundup: A “debate” spectacle sans substance

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It is now around day seventy-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like the Ukrainians have made some gains in the eastern part of the country, pushing Russian forces out of four villages near Kharkiv. Meanwhile, a team of Ukrainian soldiers has been tasked with revisiting recent battlefields around Kyiv to gather the dead, and have recovered the remains of around 200 Russian soldiers thus far. It sounds like they may try to return these bodies to Russia in exchange for prisoners, but we’ll see if those kinds of deals hold.

Closer to home, it was the first official English debate of the Conservative leadership race, and it was…an experience. While it was not the hostile snipe-fest that was the Conference Formerly Known As the Manning Conference debate, it was a strange format where they tried to have limited engagements between candidates, to control the temptation to talk over one another, and then insisted that the audience not clap or boo, which…defeats the whole point of a live audience, and it was a real choice to try and control their reactions. And it had a sad trombone sound. No, seriously. Not every segment was on policy—some of it were personal, asking candidates what they’re reading, or the kinds of music they like, which is fine and humanizes them a little. (But seriously, Roman Baber choosing Amy Winehouse? Has he ever listened to what she has to say in her lyrics?)

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1524548247456559104

Some observation on each candidate, in the drawn order of their opening statements:

  • Scott Aitchison: While he is aiming to be the reasonable, middle-of-the-road candidates, there are plenty of places where he displays the intellectual heft of the truck commercial he launched his campaign with. A lot of what he offered is not really credible, particularly on environmental or resource development files.
  • Roman Baber: I’m not going to mince words. Honestly, this guy is a moron. He says a lot of things that he’s picked up in the online discourse, but none of it makes any sense, most of it is contradictory, and he’s utterly vacuous—but nobody would call him on that.
  • Patrick Brown: While he kept insisting that he’s the only one who can deliver the suburbs like in the GTA, Brown also made some particular missteps, like insisting he would advance a no-fly zone over Ukraine (essentially committing Canada to a shooting war with a nuclear power), or that the point of reconciliation with Indigenous people is so that we can build more pipelines.
  • Pierre Poilievre: Aside from just using “freedom!” in as many answers as possible, he opened by outright attacking the Bank of Canada and saying he would replace the governor if he were to form government, which is a pretty big bomb to drop. He lied and prevaricated about his previous statements and positions, particularly during the Bitcoin portion of the evening. But the longer the evening went on, the more it became clear that he was just going down the right-wing populist checklist and name-checking every item on it, whether it was saying he’s reading Jordan Peterson’s book, or that he wants to fight “government censorship.” He displayed no principles, just virtue-signalling to the crowd he is courting.
  • Leslyn Lewis: Mostly said a lot of hyperbolic things about how “divided” the country is because of COVID, and that she is somehow going to heal the divides between people who believe in science and evidence, and anti-vaxxers who don’t care how many people they infect because they refuse to wear a mask or stay home. How does plan to heal those divides? Who knows?
  • Jean Charest: Charest was more pugnacious and was willing to break debate rules in order to how do you do, fellow kids?, and insist that he’s the only one who can unite east and west…but he too made a bunch of fairly questionable pronouncements. Like private healthcare delivery could have avoided lockdowns (erm, you saw the States, right?) or that he would cut income taxes to fight inflation (which is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline).

It was an event that begged for booze (which I did not imbibe in, because I had this post to write). But I will leave you with Paul Wells’ suitably acerbic take on the event, which sums the lunacy of it up nicely.

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QP: Stop spreading information!

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With Justin Trudeau back in the House of Commons after his visit to Kyiv, only one other leader was actually present, which is curious in and of itself. Candice Bergen led off, with her script in front of her, and she decried the former Bill C-69, noted that the Alberta Court of Appeal declared it to be unconstitutional, and demanded the government repeal it. Trudeau read a script that noted the Act created stability after the previous government gutted environmental assessments (and simply turning everything to litigation), and stated that they would appeal that decision. Bergen pivoted to gasoline prices and demanded Action, but Trudeau was not done with the Impact Assessment Act. He noted that the same Alberta court found the national carbon price unconstitutional until the Supreme Court of Canada told them it was. Bergen then decried that the Canadians were suffering and that this government was raising taxes every year, and then demanded that the prime minister “stop spreading information.” Trudeau replied that he would indeed keep spreading information, especially about things like climate rebates. Luc Berthold took over in French, and accused the government of misinformation, insisting that the prime minister has not helped people, to which Trudeau repeated the points about climate rebates in provinces that participate. Berthold decried the rising prices in the grocery store—ignoring that the main cause of those rising prices is drought—and Trudeau read that they were helping by means like the Canada Child Benefit, which is indexed to inflation.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he accused the government of trying to anglicise Quebec by not applying the province’s language Charter. Trudeau read that their bill to modernise the Official Languages Act would protect French in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. Therrien was not mollified and decried this supposed anglicisation, and Trudeau repeated his same script.

Alexandre Boulerice led for the NDP, and in French, he bemoaned profits in the oil sector and executive compensation, demanding the government do something. Trudeau reminded him that they already raised taxes on the wealthy and were adding taxes on big banks. Rachel Blaney repeated the question in English to demand the companies pay, to which Trudeau read the English version of the same response. 

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